28 February 2017 | Burst of Star Formation

Being one of Earths’ relative neighbors at a mere 1000 light-years away, NGC 1333 is one of the best studied very young clusters of active low- to intermediate-mass star formation. NGC 1333 was first identified as an optical reflection nebula at the western end of the Perseus molecular cloud.

The moniker NGC 1333 is also used to identify the molecular cloud and young stellar cluster associated with the optical reflection nebula along with the dark cloud LDN 1450.

Imaging surveys in the near- and mid-infrared have revealed NGC 1333 contains both a northern and southern young stellar cluster. Previous studies have also shown NGC 1333 is heavily extinguished and contains a substantial fraction of deeply embedded young stellar objects (YSOs) and dozens of outflows from embedded and young cluster members criss-cross this region.

While the complexity and confusion of sources and outflows has made it difficult to unravel the relations between various components, NGC 1333 has illuminated the roles of feedback and clustering phenomena in star formation.